Towards a New (Educational) Interculturalism

Abstract

Massive Online Courses have highlighted a key point which was already present in virtual education whatever their nature: the benefits of technological media or of connectivity among students is not enough for quality learning to take place. Sometimes, it is not enough even for simple learning related to the objectives, or for an educational experience to take place among students. At other times, we have talked about the need for learning interaction. In this paper, we will discuss the effective communication among students in different cultural, communication and life situations. There seems to be a misunderstood voluntarism and altruism whereby MOOCs and online courses, just by setting them up, will make the integration of students and teachers possible in some situations and with some communication problems that were already complex even in cases of simple classroom teaching with students who shared the same community and a common live and communication key. Paradoxically, educators and education professionals see MOOCs as a means of educating students around the world. They are unwilling to seriously consider what happens when thousands of students with a wide range of competence levels, learning situations, cultural and academic backgrounds are all trying to learn, whatever part of the world they happen to be, through videotaped lectures. This is a key problem in MOOCs, as well as in a greater or lesser extent in virtual education. It currently takes place in the design and development of any online course, in any discipline. Yet, little is known of these events by organizers and teachers. The idea in this issue of RED is to open the discussion and propose an element that, integrated with others such as an adequate instructional design, can contribute to its debate and to a possible solution. It is a new Interculturalism. We think it will be solved as long as a new teaching culture develops, as well as a new general education culture on the basis of a progressive development of students’ intercultural competence, critical thinking, awareness and self-regulation practices. In this issue, we have a call to fulfil this purpose. The response has been irregular. But this fact does not diminish the validity of the attempt. The question remains open. Besides, we have received a number of works that even if they do not directly address this issue, they are valuable approaches to the reality of Interculturalism in education in our environment.